GB1573661A - Digital logic circuit - Google Patents

Description

( 21) Application No 6951/77

( 22) Filed 18 Feb 1977 ( 31) Convention Application No 659767 ( 33) United States of America (US) ( 32) Filed 20 Feb.

( 44) Complete Specification Published 28 Aug 1980 ( 51) INT CL 3 H 03 K 17/00 ( 52) Index at Acceptance G 4 A 2 F 10 2 F 6 SN ( 54) A DIGITAL LOGIC CIRCUIT ( 71) We, INTEL CORPORATION, a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the state of California, United States of America, of 3065 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, California 95051, United States of America, do hereby declare the invention for which we pray that a patent may be granted to us, and the method by which it is to be performed, to be particularly described in and bv the following statement:-

The present invention relates to a digital logic circuit.

Typically rotations, transpositions, arithmetic and logical shifts of digital information have been performed by the use of shift registers multiplexers and binary rank shifters Such devices employ relatively complex circuitry which usually entails comparatively slow operational speeds and large amounts of silicon chip area when fabricated in an integrated circuit.

In order to simplify circuit structure and to increase circuit operational speed, the prior art employs logic matrices having a plurality of columns as inputs and a plurality of rows as outputs for example, as described in United States Patent Specification

No 3818203 The columns and rows are connected at each intersection by a switching device The switching devices have typically been grouped into subsets which correspond to the diagonals of the rectangular matrix formed by the input columns and output rows By selectively writing logical zeroes or ones in various columns and by activating selected diagonals of the switching devices, arithmetic and logical right shifts can be performed in the matrix circuit.

The digital information is transmitted through a single device between the input columns and the output rows.

However, such prior art circuits typically use unidirectional devices, such as junction transistors so that digital information can move in only one direction through the matrix Moreover, input information is presented on the columns and then presented on the rows at the next clock pulse No provision was made for temporarily storing digital information within the matrix circuit.

This limitation of prior art matrix circuits limits their ultimate capability to simple rotations and shifts and prevents their application to more complex data manipulations.

Furthermore, prior art matrix circuits were typically structured in a rectangular form so that the input columns were substantially at right angles to the output rows This orthogonal and rectangular topology limits the flexibility by which such circuits may be topologically incorporated into an integrated circuit chip, increases the amount of chip space devoted to such a circuit, and requires the existence of separate regions within the integrated circuit to be set aside for the function performed by the matrix circuit.

According to the present invention there is provided a digital logic circuit for the manipulation of digital signals, comprising an array of conductive lines forming a matrix of columns and rows, a plurality of bidirectional coupling means located at the intersection of each column with at least one row for coupling selected columns with selected rows, a plurality of conductive control lines, each control line being coupled to a respective subset of said coupling means lying along a respective diagonal of said matrix, each control line being arranged to activate each of said coupling means in said respective subset to couple selected columns to selected rows, each activated bidirectional coupling means coupling one selected column to one selected row and coupling digital signals from said row to said column and from said column to said row, and a plurality of register means for storing digital information, each of said register means being coupled to a different PATENT SPECIFICATION ( 11) 1 573 661 ( 19) 1976 in 1 573 661 one of said columns of said matrix.

Each register means may be a buffered latch which has a single tri-state inputoutput terminal The input-output terminal has high, low, and floating output potential levels The output of the buffer is set at the floating output potential whenever the digital signals on the columns of the matrix are coupled to the buffered latch.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example, and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:Figure 1 is a symbolic schematic of the present invention showing the data bus lines as selectively coupled at a plurality of points to a plurality of registers.

Figure 2 is a schematic showing one embodiment of the buffered latch which may be used to form one of the registers.

Figure 3 is a timing diagram corresponding to the data input and output cycles of the buffered latch illustrated in Figure 2.

The present invention is a matrix logic circuit in which the rows of the matrix are the data bus lines in an integrated circuit and the columns are conductive lines which are coupled through bidirectional devices to a plurality of registers By a method of selectively coupling the data bus lines of the registers digital words may be manipulated as they' propagate along the data bus Such manipulations include, but are not limited to right and left arithmetic and logical shifts transpositions rotations, and other more complex manipulations In addition, the use of the registers in conjunction with the bidirectional devices permits operations to he performed upon digital words having variable word lengths.

Since each data bus line is associated with a substantial amount of distributed capacitance the registers may be buffered by appropriate circuitry so that the stored digital information is not destroyed or altered bv the existence of accummulated stray charges on the data bus line to which the register may be coupled.

Figure 1 is a simplified schematic of one embodiment of the present invention The digital logic circuit is formed from an array of conductive lines forming what may be conceptionalized as a matrix of columns and rows For the purposes of illustration the rows of matrix 10 are shown as being formed from a plurality of data bus lines 12 14 16, and 18 The illustrated digital logic circuit is shown as manipulating four bit binary words The data bus lines have been shown as four in number for the purposes of simplicity only and may be increased or decreased by any number according to the given application Each of the data bus lines 12, 14, 16 and 18 are continuous conductive paths which extend, for example, in a linear direction across a portion of a silicon integrated circuit chip The opposing ends of data bus lines 12, 14, 16, and 18 form what may be conceptualized as input and output terminals for the purposes of the present digital logic circuit Each of the data bus lines 12, 14, 16, and 18 may be coupled at selected points through a plurality of bidirectional devices 20 to a second plurality of conductive lines 22 36 The second plurality of conductive lines 22 36 may be conceptionalized as the columns of the matrix array Each of the conductive lines 22 36 may be coupled at one or more points to data bus lines 12 18 by means of a bidirectional device 20 Each of conductive columns 22 36 may be associated with one or more registers 38 or 40 Thus, digital signals on data bus lines 12 18 may be selectively coupled with conductive columns 22 36 through bidirectional coupling means and may be stored in either one or both of registers 38 or 40.

Bidirectional coupling means 20 are grouped into subsets along what may be conceptionalized as diagonals 42 50 of matrix 10 In the case where bidirectional coupling means 20 is an MOS field effect transistor, each of diagonal control lines 42 may be coupled to the MOS bidirectional transistors corresponding to the intersections of matrix 10 lying along a common diagonal In such a case the MOS bidirectional device is characterized by having a gate coupled to a selected diagonal control line and a first and second region which are coupled to a selected one of the conductive columns 22 36 and a selected one of data bus lines 12 18 respectively It is to be understood that referehces to an MOS device are not intended to be strictly construed as metal on semiconductor devices.

but to devices fabricated according to a technology the same or similar to MOS devices For example, devices known as field effect transistors, IGFETS and the like are included.

As illustrated in Figure 1 by way of example at least some of diagonal control lines 42 50 may be coupled to a decoder 37.

Any decoder well known to the art may be employed to accept a digital instruction, decode and selectively activate one of diagonal control lines 42 50 in response to the digital instruction It is also possible that one or more of diagonal control lines 42 50 may be directly activated by a control signal coupled to the selected diagonal control line For example, in Figure 1 diagonal control lines 44 50 are shown as coupled to a one of four decoder having a two bit binary instruction and a control enable signal as inputs In addition, diagonal control line 42 is directly coupled to a terminal at which a control signal may be received.

1 573 661 Only five diagonal control lines are illustrated in Figure 1 for the sake of simplicity.

The number may be increased or decreased according to the particular application and need not include the cross coupled intersections as illustrated In fact, it is entirely within the scope of the present invention to include diagonal control lines extending along diagonals beginning at the lower left portion of matrix 10 and extending to upper right portions.

It is also possible that subsets of conductive columns 22 36 may be coupled to external input lines 52 60 In the present embodiment four such external control lines are illustrated although the number may be increased or decreased according to the particular application In the particular embodiment illustrated, external control line 52 is coupled by coupling means 62 to ground Coupling means 62 may be of the same class of devices as bidirectional coupling means 20 or may be a unidirectional coupling means, such as a junction transistor Similarly, external input line 54 couples conductive columns 30 36 to data bus line 12 by means of a plurality of coupling means 62 External input line 56 also couples conductive columns 30 36 to ground through a plurality of coupling means 62.

Finally, external input lines 58 and 60 couple conductive column 36 with data bus line 12 through coupling means 62 As described in greater detail below, external input line 58 serves to connect the input of data bus line 12 to conductive column 36.

Similarly, external input line 60 serves to disconnect the input of data bus line 12 with its corresponding output Although external input lines 52 60 are illustrated in Figure 1 as being directly coupled to the conductive columns 22 36 it may be preferable in some applications, in order to increase circuit speed, to couple external digital information directly into the circuitry of registers 38 and rather than to conductive columns 22 36 An embodiment which couples externally generated digital information into registers 38 and 40 will be described below in greater detail in connection with Figures 2 and 3.

In the presently illustrated embodiment each of conductive columns 22 36 are associated with either register 38 or 40 In the presently preferred embodiment registers 38 and 40 are each comprised of a plurality of latch circuits which serve to store the digital information presented on the corresponding conductive column Since each of data bus lines 12 18 is associated with relatively large capacitances it may be necessary that the latch circuit have the ability to drive a large capacitive load without losing the stored binary information For example, assume a one or logical high potential value is stored on one of the conductive columns If the corresponding selected row were discharged, coupling the selected row to the column would tend to pull the potential value of the column towards zero or a logical low value If the column and input of the latch were pulled low enough it is possible that the feedback circuitry of the latch would read a zero or logical low value into the latch thereby causing the latch to ultimately readout a zero or low logical potential Similarly, it may be possible that a fully charged data bus line could cause a latch having a zero stored value to become charged and change state.

This difficulty may be overcome by providing a latch circuit 64 with a buffer circuit 66 as shown in Figure 2 Thus, when the contents of latch circuit 64 are read, the current drive provided by buffer 66 is sufficiently high to drive the capacitive load of the corresponding data bus line either to one or zero according to the output of the latch and buffer circuit combination.

However, since buffer circuit 66 has a high current output and drives a low impedance, it is difficult to store information into latch circuit 64 by coupling a digital signal through buffer circuit 66 Therefore, buffer circuit 66 must have a tristate output, or have an output capable of obtaining a high, low and floating potential value Thus, when data is to be stored in latch circuit 64, the input load presented by buffer circuit 66 may be effectively disconnected by setting buffer circuit 66 into the third output state wherein it has a floating output potential In this case buffer circuit 66 may be bypassed through a gated line coupling the conductive column with the input of latch circuit 64.

One embodiment of latch circuit 64 and buffer circuit 66 may be understood with reference to Figures 2 and 3 Throughout this specification it is assumed that the MOS field effect transistors are enhancement mode devices except as may be required for depletion load devices, as illustrated in Figure 2 in the latches in inverter loads and similar circuitry Buffer circuit 66 is shown as being comprised of a first and second inverter stage coupled to a pull up and pull down device respectively The first inverter stage is comprised of a load device 68 coupled in series circuit with two parallel driver devices 70 and 72 In the embodiment illustrated load device 68 and driver devices and 72 are MOS field effect transistors having a gate and first and second regions.

The first region of load device 68 is coupled to a power supply potential Vdd while the second region is coupled to the first regions of driver devices 70 and 72 The second regions of driver devices 70 and 72 are coupled to ground The gate of load device 68 is bootstrapped or coupled to the second 1 573 661 region of load device 68 The input of the first inverter stage is the gate of driver device 72 while the output of the first inverter stage is the gate and second region of load device 68 Similarly, the second inverter stage is comprised of a similar load device 74 in series circuit with parallel driver devices 76 and 78 The output of the first inverter stage is coupled to the gate of a pull up device 80 while the output of the second inverter stage is coupled to the gate of a pull down device 82 Pull up device 80 and pull down device 82 are in series circuit between Vdd and ground and are fairly large devices.

The gate of driver device 72 is the input to the first driver stage while the gate of driver device 76 is the input of the second inverter stage Thus, the inputs to buffer circuit 66 require a double rail output from latch circuit 64.

Figure 2 illustrates one embodiment for latch circuit 64 Any other embodiment well known to the art may be employed to store digital information coupled to latch circuit 64 As illustrated, latch circuit 64 is comprised of a first and second inverter stage similar to those previously described with respect to buffer circuit 66 The first inverter stage of latch circuit 64 is comprised of load device 84 in series circuit with driver device 86.

Similarly, the second inverter stage of latch circuit 64 is comprised of a load device 88 in series circuit with driver device 90 The input to latch circuit 64 is the gate of driver device 86 while the double rail output of latch circuit 64 is provided by the second region of load device 84 and the second region of load device 88 The second region of load device 88 is also fed back through a gated line 92 and a coupling device 94 to the input of the first inverter stage of gate or driver device 86 Similarly, the output of buffer circuit 66 is coupled by a bypass line 96 through a coupling device 98 to the input of the first inverter stage or the gate of driver device 86.

Figure 2 illustrates two external input lines coupled to the input of latch circuit 64.

The first input line is gated to the input of latch circuit 64 through a coupling device The second external input line is similarly gated through a coupling device 102 In the present embodiment, external input signal, S, having logical value equal to the sign bit of data bus line 12 of Figure 1, is coupled through coupling device 100 to the input of latch circuit 64 The second external input line couples the input of latch circuit 64 through coupling device 102 to ground.

The first external input line of Figure 2 is analogous to external input line 54 of Figure 1 while the second external input line of Figure 2 is analogous to external input lines 52 and 56 of Figure 1.

The operation of the buffered latch circuit of Figure 2 may be better understood by referring to the timing diagram in Figure 3.

During the readout of latch circuit 64, illustrated in the right side of Figure 3, control signal, DE, coupled to the gates of driver devices 70 and 78, and gating signal, Cl, are held low Data latch signal, DL, remains high thereby completing the circuit of feedback line 92 Assume for example that a one has been stored on the gate of driver device 86 during a prior storage operation The one on the gate of driver device 86 causes device 86 to be conductive and the second region of load device 84 to be set at a logical zero A logical zero output from the first inverter stage of latch circuit 64 causes driver device 90 to remain nonconductive and a logical one to be generated on the output of the second inverter stage or the second region of load device 88 The logical one on the output of the second inverter stage is fed back through feedback line 92, through coupling device 94 to the gate of driver device 86 thereby maintaining the latch in its preset state The double rail output from the first and second inverter stages of latch circuit 64 are provided to the gates of driver devices 72 and 76 of the first and second inverter stages of buffer circuit 66 A logical zero applied by latch circuit 64 to the gate of driver device 72 causes the device to remain nonconductive while the logical one applied to the gate of driver device 76 causes it to become conductive.

Thus, the output or second region of load device 68 is set at a logical one while the output or second region of load device 74 is set at a logical zero This in turn causes pull down device 82 to remain nonconductive while pull up device 80 becomes conductive and the column coupled to buffer circuit 66 is preset at a logical one Therefore, when data readout signal, X goes high, bidirectional coupling device 20 becomes conductive thereby connecting the conductive column with the data bus line and setting it at a logical one.

The left hand side of Figure 3 indicates the control signals during the input phase of the data staging Assume for example that a logical one has been written onto the data bus line which will be selected The clock signal, disenable, DE, goes to its high state thereby causing driver devices 70 and 78 to become conductive The output of the first and second inverter stages of buffer circuit 66 are thereby pulled low and logical zeroes transferred onto the gates of both the pull up device 80 and pull down device 82 The output of the buffer circuit is therefore set at an indeterminent or floating potential After an interval of A T 1, the clock signal, data latch, DL, goes low causing coupling device 94 to become nonconductive During this clock, feedback line 92 is open circuited S 1 573 661 5 and the input of latch circuit 64 is decoupled from its output After an interval A T 2, while clock signal, DE, is still high and clock signal, DL, still low, control signal, X, begins to go high gating one of the bidirectional coupling devices 20, thereby coupling the selected row with the selected column.

assuming that a logical one has been written on the selected row, bidirectional coupling means 20 will write a logical one on the selected column and present the binary information at the output of buffer circuit 66.

Since clock signal, DE, is high the output of buffer circuit 66 is floating and it thereby follows the potential value applied to selected column After a delay of A T 3, clock signal, Cl, goes high causing coupling device 98 to become conductive Thus, the circuit of bypass line 96 is completed and the logical one at the output of buffer 66 is coupled to the input of latch circuit 64.

After an interval of A T 4 following clock signal, Cl, clock signal, DL, goes high causing device 94 to become conductive and thereby coupling the output of latch 64 with its input thus completing the latch circuit.

The overall operation of the present invention mav now be understood by the following description in reference to Figure

1 It is to be understood that logical zeroes may be loaded into registers 38 and/or 40 either by the embodiment of Figure 1 employing external input line 52 or by the embodiment of Figure 2 employing coupling device 102 The embodiment of Figure 2 has been found to increase overall circuit operation speeds.

The present circuit may effect a logical right shift as follows A binary word is loaded into register 40 by selective activation of diagonal control line 42 Simultaneouly or during a subsequent clock pulse, external input line 56 or a plurality of devices in register 38 similar to coupling device 102 mav be activated thereby loading logical zeroes into each latch of register 38.

If desired, a three bit right logical shift could then be effected by selectively activating diagonal control line 48 Thus, if the binary word 1111 were stored in register 40, the shifted word appearing at the outputs of data bus lines 12 18 would be the three lowest order bits of the word in register 38 and the highest order bit in register 40, namely 0001.

Similarly, a logical left shift may be effected by loading a binary word into register 38 by selectively activating diagonal control line 50 through decoder 37 Simultaneously or during a subsequent clock pulse external input line 52 or a plurality of devices in register 40 similar to coupling device 102 of Figure 2 is activated Thus, register 40 is loaded with logical zeroes If a three bit logical left shift were desired, diagonal control line 44 would be selectively activated by decoder 37 If the binary word 1111 were stored in register 38, the word 1000 would then be presented at the output.

of data bus lines 12 18.

An arithmetic right shift of a binary word shifts the binary word a designated number of orders to the right while replacing each of the vacated bits by the sign bit or highest order bit of the same word During the first clock cycle a binary word to be shifted is loaded into register 40 by selectively activating diagonal control line 42 Simultaneously or at a subsequent clock pulse, external input line 54 or coupling device 98 is selectively activated, thereby loading the sign bit or highest order bit of the input word into register 38 If, for example, a two bit right arithmetic shift is desired, diagonal control line 46 is then selectively activated by decoder 37 The new binary word appearing at the output of data bus lines 12 18 consists of the sign bit at the three highest order bits followed by the highest numeric bit For example, if the input word was 5110, the new binary word appearing at the outputs would be SS 51.

Finally, an arithmetic left shift is defined as retaining the sign bit of the input word while shifting the remaining numeric bits of the word to the left and inserting logical zeroes in the vacated orders For example, a two bit arithmetic left shift on an input word, 5101 results in a new binary word 5100 During the first clock cycle the input binary word is loaded into register 38 by selective activation of diagonal control line Simultaneously or at a subsequent clock pulse logical zeroes are loaded into register by selected activation of external input line 52 or a plurality of devices in register 40 similar to coupling device 102 External input line 58 then goes high causing external input line 60, which is the logical complement, to go low When external input line goes low, the input of data bus line 12 is disconnected from the output of data bus line 12 The simultaneous activation of external input line 58 directly couples conductive column 36 with the output of data bus line 12 Thus, the sign bit of the input word is preserved and presented as the sign bit of the new word at the output of the data bus lines 12 18 Assuming a two bit left shift is desired, diagonal control line 46 is selectively activated by decoder 37 to effect a two bit left arithmetic shift In the present example the lowest order bit of the four bit binary word becomes the highest order numerical bit of the new binary word and is followed by logical zeroes read from register 40.

A digital logic circuit including a matrix of conductive columns and rows coupled at 1 573 661 1 573 661 selected matrix intersections by bidirectional MOS devices and a register comprising a plurality of tri-state buffered latch circuits is described and claimed in our copending application No 7926851 (Serial No.

1573662) divided out of the present application.

A method for simultaneously manipulating a plurality of digital signals on a plurality of ordered data bus lines in an integrated circuit is described and claimed in our copending application No 7926852 (Serial No 1573663) divided out of the present application.

Claims (9)

WHAT WE CLAIM IS:-

1 A digital logic circuit for the manipulation of digital signals, comprising an array of conductive lines forming a matrix of columns and rows, a plurality of bidirectional coupling means located at the intersection of each column with at least one row for coupling selected columns with selected rows, a plurality of conductive control lines, each control line being coupled to a respective subset of said coupling means lying along a respective diagonal of said matrix, each control line being arranged to activate each of said coupling means in said respective subset to couple selected columns to selected rows, each activated bidirectional coupling means coupling one selected column to one selected row and coupling digital signals from said row to said column and from said column to said row, and a plurality of register means for storing digital information, each of said register means being coupled to a different one of said columns of said matrix.

2 A circuit as claimed in claim 1, further comprising first control means for selectively applying a control signal to a control line to activate each of the coupling means in the respective subset.

3 A circuit as claimed in claim 1 or 2, further comprising second control means for selectively applying a predetermined digital input signal to at least one column of said matrix.

4 A circuit as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein each said coupling means is a MOS transistor having a first and second region and a gate, said first region being coupled to one of said rows, said second region being coupled to said corresponding column, and said gate being coupled to said control line corresponding to said matrix diagonal including said intersection of said one row and corresponding column.

A circuit as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein each one of said plurality of register means is a buffered latch.

6 A circuit as claimed in claim 5, wherein said buffered latch has a single tri-state input-output terminal having high.

low and floating output potential levels, said input-output terminal having said floating output potential when said digital signals on said columns are read into said buffered latch, said buffered latch including disenabling means for setting said input-output terminal at said floating output potential.

7 A circuit as claimed in claim 6, wherein said buffered latch is comprised of a buffer circuit and a latch circuit, said buffer circuit having a first and second inverter and a driver stage, said driver stage being disenabled by said disenabling means and thereby assuming said floating output potential in response to a disenabling signal coupled to said disenabling means, said disenabling means being coupled to said first and second inverter stages, said output of said driver stage being coupled to a gate coupled to said latch circuit to bypass said buffer circuit when said driver stage is disenabled.

8 A circuit as claimed in claim 7, wherein said latch circuit is comprised of a third and fourth inverter stage, said third inverter stage being coupled to said fourth inverter stage of said latch circuit and being coupled to said first inverter stage of said buffer circuit, said fourth inverter stage being coupled to a feedback gate, said third inverter stage also being coupled to said feedback gate and said fourth inverter stage being coupled to said second inverter stage of said buffer circuit.

9 A circuit as claimed in any of claims 6 to 8, wherein said buffered latch is comprised of a latch circuit and a buffer circuit, said buffer circuit having a first and second inverter stage, each inverter stage having a load device and driver device coupled in series circuit and said buffer circuit having a driver stage with a pull-up device, and a pull-down device, said load device of said first and second inverter stages being respectively coupled to said pull-up and pulldown devices of said driver stage, said driver device of said first and second inverter stages being coupled respectively to a first and second input terminal for a double rail input to said buffer circuit, and said first and second inverter stages being disenabled by selective control of a disenabling device coupled in parallel circuit with each of said driver devices of said first and second inverter stages.

A digital logic circuit for the manipulation of digital signals substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

PAGE WHITE & FARRER, Chartered Patent Agents, 27 Chancery Lane, London WC 2 A 1 NT.

Agents for the Applicants.

Printed for Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

by Croydon Printing Company Limited Croydon Surrey 1980.

Published by The Patent Office, 25 Southampton Buildings.

London WC 2 A IAY from which copies may be obtained.